Another Chicago native who played for Dayton, Kevin Dillard, helped recruit Pollard and Davis, who joined Scoochie Smith in a 2013 recruiting class that would win more games than any other class.
“I hosted them on their visit,” Dillard said. “I can take credit for them. I was 100% on my recruits.”
Dillard did not play as big a role in the recruitment of North Carolina State transfer Bryce Heard, who will be the latest Flyer from the Chicago area in the 2025-26 season, though his connection to Heard didn’t hurt. Dillard was an assistant coach at Homewood-Flossmoor High School, south of Chicago, when it won the state championship in 2024 in Heard’s final season of high school basketball.
Dillard first alerted Dayton associate head coach Ricardo Greer about Heard’s talents when Heard was still in high school, but Heard committed to North Carolina State. This spring, Dillard saw Heard the day before he visited Dayton.
“I told him that he was going to love it,” Dillard said, “and I knew he would. Then the next day, I got the news that he was going to commit.”
Heard, a 6-foot-5 guard, committed to Dayton on May 2. He joined guards Adam Njie Jr. (Iona), Jordan Derkack (Rutgers) and De’Shayne Montgomery (Georgia) and forward Malcolm Thomas (Villanova), all of whom committed to Dayton in April, in UD’s 2025 transfer class.
Dayton has 12 scholarship players on the 2025-26 roster and could still add to a group that now includes seven newcomers — the five transfers plus incoming freshmen Damon Friery and Jaron McKie. It has earned commitments in June the last two years: Nate Santos (2023); and Amaël L’Etang (2024).
Heard averaged 16.9 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.5 assists in the year Dillard, a 2008 Homewood-Flossmoor graduate, shared with him.
“He’s an athletic wing,” Dillard said. “Streaky from the 3. He has a very nice mid-range game, though, so I would label him a three-level scorer. I like his outside shot. That’s going to improve with more reps and more attention to detail. I think he’s just been good off talent for so long, but once he puts in that work, gets those little details to enhance his percentages a little bit, I think he’ll be a great player for the program.”
Homewood-Flossmoor’s state championship in 2024 was the first for the program. Dillard said it wasn’t a surprise because the team emerged as the favorite in December and was ranked first all season.
“Bryce did a good job of helping lead the charge,” Dillard said, “especially during the playoffs. In the big games when we needed him to step up, he did. That’s one thing that I can say about him. When it’s time to perform, he goes to a different gear.
“He’s going to do a lot of things. He can rebound for you. He can play-make a little bit. He’s not Magic (Johnson) or anything, but he’s unselfish enough to hit the open teammate. He can affect the game in a lot of different ways. I think (Anthony) Grant will be a good coach for him because he instills toughness with his style of play. I never played for Grant, but I played against him when he was coaching at Alabama. Just watching the culture that all his teams play with, I think Bryce will definitely benefit from that. He’ll get a little bit of that edge to him, and I think sky’s the limit once he gets that.”
Heard received limited playing time last season as a freshman at N.C. State. He appeared in 24 games, averaging 1.2 points in 6.3 minutes. He made 2 of 10 3-pointers. He played double-digit minutes three times in the first four games and single-digit minutes the rest of the season.
While Heard transferred after a coaching change and a season that saw him struggle to find minutes, Dillard made a different move 15 years ago, leaving Southern Illinois, where he started as a freshman and sophomore, for a higher-profile program.
Dillard announced his transfer to Dayton in May 2010, sat out the 2010-11 season, which was coach Brian Gregory’s last, and then played two seasons for coach Archie Miller. He led the Flyers in scoring both seasons, starting a run of seven seasons in which a transfer (Dillard, Jordan Sibert, Charles Cooke and Cunningham) led the team in scoring each season.
Dillard then enjoyed a long career overseas, playing in Italy, France, Greece, etc. His last stop was Macedonia in the 2021-22 season.
Dillard said he’s now coaching and working in player development in Chicago. An injury and surgery brought his professional career to an end, but he feels good now.
“It’s kind of tough to deal with right now because I still feel like I can go,” Dillard said, “but at the same time, I’ve been kind of channeling my energy into different things. It’s a learning period for me right now. I’m figuring it all out, I’m just helping these kids as much as I can get ready for college, and hopefully they’ll excel when they get there.”
Dillard played for Dayton’s alumni team, the Red Scare, in The Basketball Tournament in 2019 at Capital University in Bexley but has not been back to UD Arena for a game since the end of his college career. He plans to change that next season. Heard gives him extra incentive to cheer for the Flyers.
“If I needed an extra reason, I’ll definitely tack this one on,” Dillard said, “but my heart bleeds red and blue.”
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